WHEN THE TWERMS CAME

WE NOW KNOW (little consolation though this provides) that the Twerms

were Heeing from their hereditary enemies the Mucoids when they first

detected Earth on their far ranging Omphalmoscopes. Thereafter, they

reacted with astonishing speed and cunning.

In a few weeks of radio-monitoring, they accumulated billions of words

of electro print from the satellite Newspad services. Miraculous

linguists, they swiftly mastered the main terrestrial languages; more

than that, they analysed our culture, our technology, our

political-economic systems our de fences Their keen intellects, goaded

by desperation, took only months to identify our weak points, and to

devise a diabolically effective plan of campaign.

They knew that the U.S. and the USSR.

possessed between them almost a tera ton of warheads. The fifteen

other nuclear powers might only muster a few score gigatons, and

limited deliver systems, but even this modest contribution could be

embarrassing to an invader. It was therefore essential that the

assault should be swift, totally unexpected, and absolutely

overwhelming. Perhaps they did consider a direct attack on the

Pentagon, the Red Fort, the Kremlin, and the other centers of military

power. If so, they soon dismissed such naive concepts.

With a subtlety which, after the event, we can now ruefully appreciate,

they selected our most compact, and most vulnerable, area of

sensitivity.... Their insultingly minuscule fleet attacked at 4 A.M.

European time on a wet Sunday morning.

The weapons they employed were the irresistible Psychedelic Ray, the

Itching Beam (which turned staid burghers into instant nudists), the

dreaded Diarrhea Bomb, and the debilitating Tumescent Aerosol Spray.

The total human casualties were thirty-six, mostly through exhaustion

or heart failure.

Their main force (three ships) attacked Zurich.

One vessel each sufficed for Geneva, Basle, and Berne. They also sent

what appears to have been a small tugboat to deal with Vaduz.

No armor plate could resist their laser-equipped robots. The scanning

cameras they carried in their ventral pa lps could record a billion

bits of information a second. Before breakfast time, they knew the

owners of every numbered bank account in Switzerland.

Thereafter, apart from the dispatch of several thousand special

delivery letters by first post Monday morning, the conquest of Earth

was complete.